- Collect artifacts through the game to unlock more than 60 playable characters, including villains and supporting characters; enjoy character swapping and free-play abilities along with two-player drop-in, drop-out cooperative gameplay.
- Build your own adventure mode allows you to create your own levels and environments and share them with your friends, combining them with the existing ones in the game; beat each level in Story mode and return in Free Play.
- Play all new Kingdom of the Crystal Skull characters such as Mutt Williams on his motorcycle and use special abilities, including Oxley’s Crystal Skull Power.
- Indy has all new animations, such as grabbing an enemy with his whip then throwing him over his shoulder as well as using Indy’s newly enhanced whip to interact with Lego objects and help unlock iconic puzzles and battle with enemies.
- Jump into all new vehicles to help Indy get through all the new levels including planes, boats and mine carts – but watch out for the quicksand; Use a variety of weapons from the environment to fight enemies (e.g., chairs, guns, swords, bottles).
LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues combines the fun and creative construction of LEGO bricks with the wits, daring and non-stop action of one of cinema’s most beloved adventure heroes. With a unique, tongue-in-cheek take on all the Indiana Jones films – including for the first time ever Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – LEGO Indiana Jones 2 follows Dr. Jones’ escapades from the jungles of South America to the Peruvian Ruins and beyond. Fans can experience th
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(out of 142 reviews)
List Price: $ 19.99
Price: $ 14.99
Review by K. Hamlett for Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues
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I’ve been a big fan of all the Lego games, so my son & I were excited to pick up this one when it first came out. After playing it to about 85% completion, I have to say that overall this one is a pretty big letdown.
The format of the previous games has been pretty much the same – there’s an overall hub that serves as the central area for the game. From there, levels are grouped together by story (about 5-6 levels for each movie/storyline). Each level contains a variety of hidden areas and secrets that can be accessed as the player opens new characters in the game, adding to the level’s replay value.
That philosophy seems to have been rethought for this game, and not for the better. Instead of one hub, there are 6 – one for each of the 1st three movies, and three for Crystal Skull. The hub is a giant area where you can locate new characters and vehicles, and access the story and bonus levels. The hubs are fairly involved, and are set up the same way the levels were in the previous games (obtaining a new character lets you use their new ability to access a new part of the hub). The hubs are pretty well designed. My one complaint is that almost every new character remains in the area where you first purchased them, so remembering where to find the one you need can be difficult. Also, some of them are in very far-flung locations, so it can literally take about 5 minutes of just walking/driving the entire way across the hub to find the character with a wrench (for example), and then going all the way back across the hub to the entrance of the level that you need him for. I don’t know who came up with that, but it’s a TERRIBLE idea and a boring chore.
The levels themselves have been simplified WAY down. There are no secrets, there are no hidden areas, there is no reason to play any of them through more than once. Only the most rudimentary thought seems to have gone into each one. Gameplay is still the same as it ever was, and it’s enjoyable, but the level design leaves a LOT to be desired. Generally, an entire bonus level will consist of one puzzle – for example, use the shovel to dig up a spear, throw the spear into the hole and use it to climb up to a ledge. Hit a switch with the whip and you’re done!
The story levels too are much shorter than the levels in previous games. As an example, anyone who has played the first Lego Indiana Jones game will probably remember the mountain level from Raiders of the Lost Ark. That level begins in Marion’s bar where you have to defeat a boss while the bar burns down, then moves into the mountain passes, then to a mountain temple, and finally to an army outpost. The equivalent level in this newest installment has players beating a boss in Marion’s bar and THAT’S IT! That is the whole level. Each story level can be completed in roughly 5 minutes, and has no replay value at all – no secret areas to discover or any reason to come back to it again.
My final issue with this game is that it freezes on a fairly consistent basis – we’ve had it lock up about 15 times now, in all different areas, though the Raiders hub tends to get it the most. From poking around on forums, this seems to be a fairly common complaint.
If you’re a fan of the Lego games, it’s worth playing this one – it’s still fun, even if it is a bit lacking in comparison to previous ones. However, I am keeping my fingers crossed that they do not retain this format for the Lego Harry Potter game coming out next year.
Review by Darrell Kienzle for Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues
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My son and I enjoyed the original LEGO Indiana Jones immensely and were very excited about the sequel. We preordered it months ago and counted down the last few days until it arrived. Unfortunately, this game lacks any of the charm or fun of the original.
There are a ton of lengthy cut scenes and simplistic levels. Unlike the Star Wars, Batman, and Indiana Jones (original) games, there is not a single base where you can buy stuff, see the artifacts you have collected, and choose to replay any of the levels. Instead, you wander around composite levels for each adventure with huge green arrows showing you where to go to enter one of the levels. Except when they don’t show you the big green arrow and you are instead left to wander around until you happen to trigger a new level — the whole thing makes no sense with no clear progression.
Within a few hours of starting, my son had already run into a bug that prevented him from being able to complete a level. One of the on screen characters magically teleported himself outside of his prison cell, and once there could no longer run to the back of his cell leaving you the opportunity to grab the key from him. After much frustration, I convinced my son that he had to quit the level, abandoning his progress, and return. Sure enough, when we returned to the level the bug was resolved and we were able to grab the key and move on. The Batman game showed similar quality assurance defects — such as random lockups — and this game is following the same downward trajectory.
The levels we have seen this far are largely free of puzzles. They generally involve smashing everything and collecting studs. The treasure chests that were so much fun to collect in the earlier game are not present here. Apparently there are some chests that can be collected in the base levels, but those are a tiny fraction of the number of puzzles in the earlier game.
Instead of puzzles, we have seen a number of levels where it is completely unclear what you are supposed to do. Sure, we run around smashing stuff, but collecting studs won’t get you out of the level. Instead, you’ll see icons for some number of vehicles that you need to destroy, but apparently there is some special way you need to destroy them in order for it to count. We have already seen two such levels where we have destroyed every vehicle we saw but for some reason those didn’t count — you had to be in the right vehicle (presumably mirroring the movie?) when smashing those other vehicles for it to count. For a child who doesn’t think like a programmer, this is ridiculously frustrating.
One of the features we most looked forward to was the ability to split the screen so that two players could each explore different areas of a level. Unfortunately the implementation of this is so bad that it is actually a detriment to game play. When the screen splits, the programmers wanted to make sure that it could seamlessly rejoin, so they are always adjusting the perspective of the two halves so that they line up with one another. This means if you are standing still, lining up for a tricky jump and your partner is running around in another area, your half of the screen will rotate to reflect your relation to the other player and you will jump in a direction that you hadn’t expected. Worse, the screen always splits with a diagonal line, which looks nice but makes it impossible to see where you are going when you need to drive upwards in one of the vehicle levels. It really feels like they advertised this feature before fully testing it… if they tested it at all.
When we preordered this game, we gave our copy of the Original Adventure to one of my son’s friends, figuring that the new game would be a superset and include all the content from the prior game. Not so. Once we unlocked Raiders of the Lost Ark and tried starting that, we were horrified to discover that they had deleted the Temple Escape scene, replacing it instead with a lame cutscene where Indy tosses the idol to Marcus and a giant boulder rolls over him — in the college.
Finally, a warning to parents. LEGO made the _same_ mistake with this game that they did with Batman. When my son discovered the Batman game, he really wanted some of the Batman sets, but LEGO pulled them all off the store shelves at about the same time and the aftermarket prices are absurd. This new game features the Crystal Skull and a lot of sets from that movie… just when LEGO has discontinued them and is selling off the remaining stock! So if you do buy this for your child, be prepared for the disappointment both in the game, and in the fact that it is a glorified advertisement for products that you won’t be able to get your kids.
The worst thing about this game is explaining to my son that the problems are with the game, not with him. When he runs into bugs, levels where the objectives are completely unclear, or insanely hard challenges, he gets extremely frustrated and angry with himself. If you want you child to grow up with positive gaming experiences, skip this one and get a Mario game instead.
Review by essential stories for Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues
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I just completed the game and had a blast doing it! The formula has been changed a bit from the earlier Lego games, but there are some welcome new additions, too. The pros: better weapon function with Wii remote targeting (similar to Batman’s Batarangs), much better vehicle challenges that are actually fun and allow you to get in and out of the vehicle, improved graphics, lots of large areas to explore, no repeated content from first Lego Indy game. The cons: no treasure chests within the levels (This has been replaced with other hide-and-seek bonus stuff, but I still miss replaying the levels to find treasure.); shorter levels with frustrating ‘boss’ levels and repetitive bonus levels; no single ‘home base’ for checking progress (confusing at first). All in all, this is a more sophisticated game, but I wish they had stuck a little more closely to the original format. Still, if you love the Lego games, you’ll definitely be hooked!
Review by Steven Daniel Clubb for Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues
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I found out about this game the day before its release and I was over-joyed. The Lego series of games have all been excellent and charming (albeit formulaic) and each release has noticeably improved the series. And on paper, it looked like Indiana Jones 2 would continue the trend. Unfortunately, a couple of major game play tweaks make the game a much more shallow experience.
First off, major props to the new hub system. While the lay-out can be a bit confusing, finding your purchasable items is harder than it should be, and you have to constantly back-track to get required characters; it’s a wonderful rich environment with lots of mini-games, puzzles, and lots of items to scavenge. This is exactly the sort of development I expected from the Lego series and I expect its flaws will be ironed out with future Lego releases. If only the rest of the game lived up to it.
The biggest problem is the size (or lack thereof) of the levels. Most levels are one big room with only a few levels that allow you to explore (and even those are far smaller than the epic levels of the other games). Virtually all character-based levels can be completed inside of five minutes. The only large levels in the game are the vehicle levels, which involve lots of tedious crashing into other vehicles until you smash enough to continue. Even the Lego Bonus Levels are small with none of the puzzling required in all the other games… just hop into a vehicles, smash and grab coins, occasionally hopping out to grab a couple of coins inaccessible to cars. Collecting the $1,000,000 coins is incredibly easy on all six bonus levels and shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. The only good thing about them is the ability to keep your coins (a first in the series), which makes saving up for the bonus multiplier really easy.
Also gone are the canisters within the individual levels, which cuts the replay value of this game dramatically. Even without bonus multipliers, it’s easy to get enough coins for True Adventurer status since there’s relatively few hazards or enemies on the levels (although there doesn’t appear to be any bonus items given for doing so). Treasure Mode (which re-dresses the regular levels) require you to bring in the needed players (no selecting characters from a menu) which adds a level of tedium to the process as you frequently have to trek across the central hub to find a spear thrower or explosive user. Collecting the treasure on these levels (and various hidden bonus levels) will open up the Lego Land Bonus levels, which I mentioned earlier.
Of interest is the level builder, which will allow you to duplicate the regular Bonus Levels, which are puzzles that rely on the skills of certain types of characters to solve. Not having played around with it too much, it looks fairly easy to use; but at the moment there’s no way to trade them on-line, so it’s of limited interest.
If this had been the very first Lego game, I’m sure I’d be gushing over it; because all the trademark humor and fun is here. The combat systems is still the same, but with a tweak that allows the player to select targets if they hold down the attack button; which is a very welcome addition (no more jumping up and down trying to find the sweet spot to destroy an item with a gun). But the less expansive and involving levels make this the weakest entry in the series. Hopefully Harry Potter will return it to glory.
Review by L. Meyers for Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues
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I have been a big fan of the various “Lego” game offerings and when I heard they were coming out with a sequel to the Indy game I anxiously counted down the days until release. Unfortunately I’m disappointed with this game. It’s just not the same caliber as the other Lego games and they’ve changed some of the general feel of game play that gave the others their “character” and longevity (to continue playing). We’ve played the other games over and over again.
The good:
This is the first PS3 version of the Lego games that we have purchased, all others are the Wii versions. But generally speaking this game doesn’t seem to be near as buggy as the last Indy game (which was terribly buggy on the Wii). It hasn’t been without it’s issues (we have had 1 freeze -had to hard power down the system and some minor buggy behavior. As usual, the graphics are nice. And, of course, it’s always fun bashing things and collecting studs.
Some of the changes:
1) Each of the movies now has a separate “hub” from which you access the various levels. At first this was sort of cool. However the spaces are large and it takes a while to get to the next spot. There is a “Quick Play” option, but it’s hidden in the Creator box, which you wouldn’t necessarily look for.
2) They’ve done away with purchasing characters and extras from the store. These extras only become available one at a time as you complete certain things along the way. They are dropped in via parachute and you can elect to purchase them. If you don’t purchase them right away you need to run all over the hub and try to remember where they where dropped in.
3) Bricks are different. There are 3 colors of bricks, which are now “hidden” in the hub areas. Although once you figure out what you are looking for they aren’t all that difficult to find. Mini kits are gone, replaced by “treasures”. For treasure, you must complete the level once and then go back in. The secondary levels are frustrating. You must have certain characters to complete the level however you don’t select multiple characters to take with you like in other games and you cannot cycle thru characters like you could before either. So if you don’t have the right characters when you go in, you have to go back out. IF that capability is there, I couldn’t find it. Additionally, when playing as a single player, I would expect the accompanying character to automatically be one of the characters that is necessary for the level. This was not the case.
4) It’s now in split screen mode for multiplayers. Rather than be a static split screen, it seems to be making attempts at being a smart split screen. When characters are close together, there’s no divider. When you get further away, the screen splits (shows a black line to signify the split). Where it splits is dependent on where the players are, it might be top/bottom, left/right, diagonally. This also means that sometimes you may be on the left, other times you might be on the right. At first we didn’t realize this was even happening until suddenly a black line appeared. It takes some getting used to, but it’s nice to have the ability to explore other places and not be anchored by the other person’s movements.
The summary
One of the best parts of the earlier games, and what made them enjoyable time and time again was replaying levels in free play mode and using the various characters to search for newly accessible areas, find the minikits and other secret goodies and so on. This simply isn’t there any more. Additionally, each movie has a car chase level…which is really just the same activity with different scenery and cars. It gets a bit old. Individual levels are short and there’s really not a lot to them. We’re flying right through the game and I doubt there’s going to be much replay of it when we’re done.This game doesn’t have the longevity the others had and the changes don’t feel like improvements. I have been looking forward to Harry Potter, with these changes, I’m a little worried.
I have not played much with the creator stuff, but that’s not really appealing to me. I wonder if that’s where they put all of their focus, because it doesn’t feel like it was in the actual game play.
It’s not a terrible game, just disappointing.